One Dish Wonders: Chicken Basquaise with Hatch Chiles

Sous Chef loves one-dish meals.  Maybe it’s because he does most of the kitchen clean-up or because he relishes the challenge of rooting through the refrigerator and making something from it denizens.  So Chicken Basquaise, from Around My French Table, qualified for his preferred one-dish meal classification and was a perfect selection for the French Friday’s with Dorie make-up week.

Chicken Basquaise is ridiculously simple to make.  Chop an onion, a few bell peppers, garlic and tomatoes, brown the chicken, and let everything take a long, warm soak in the tomato and pepper mixture (technically the mixture is a piperade, although you could call it a ragout), put rice in the rice cooker, and dinner is ready 40 minutes later.  This is one of those meals that you can whip together when you are low on groceries, as most items are kitchen staples, or short on time.  The piperade can even be made ahead of time and refrigerated for a couple of days or frozen for later use.

The essential ingredient, and what makes this dish fall into the Basque food category, is Piment d’Espelette.  This product is made from chiles cultivated in the Espelette, France region within Basque Country.  So famous is this pepper that, like the best wines of France, it has been given a protected designation by the European Union to insure its integrity.  It only rates 4,000 on the Scoville Heat Scale, which makes it comparable to the jalapeño pepper and two steps above the pimento or pepperoncini.  It originated in Mexico and was imported to Europe in the 16^th century and by the 18^th century the Espelette region was famous for these peppers.  It is used in Basque cooking for many purposes, a common use being as a black pepper substitute.  Commentators find Espelette pepper’s flavor profile to encompass hints of peach and sea brine or dark, slightly smoky.  In this dish, I used the powdered version and its flavors mingled nicely with the ingredients of the piperade and added a little bit of heat that is offset by the cooling effect of the rice.  Since the bell peppers offer no heat, you control the spiciness of this dish by your conservative or liberal use of Piment d’Espelette.

To see what the other Dorista’s have done this week visit French Fridays with Dorie.

One Dish Wonders: Chicken Basquaise with Hatch Chiles

 

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Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

70 mins

Total time

1 hour 30 mins

 

Easy one dish meal that celebrates the Basque Region. This version has a little Santa Fe flair to it as it incorporates Hatch Chiles into the piperade. The chicken can be browned while you are preparing the piperade to save time.

Author: Adapted from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan

Recipe type: Entree

Cuisine: Basque

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• For the Piperade
• 3 Walla Walla Onions (smaller than a tennis ball, but larger than a golf ball)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 green bell peppers
• 1 red bell pepper
• 3 mild green hatch chiles
• 5 tomatoes cut into ½ inch chunks
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons sea salt (may adjust to taste)
• sugar - just a pinch
• 3 thyme sprigs
• 1 bay leaf
• ½ teaspoon piment d'Esplette
• Freshly ground Pepper
• For the chicken:
• 1 chicken cut into eight pieces or eight chicken thighs
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• salt & pepper
• ¾ cup dry white wine
• To finish:
• white rice - cooked, used as base for chicken and piperade
• cilantro or basil for garnish

Instructions

1. For the Piperade:
2. Cut the onions in half, and then into thin slices.
3. Heat a Dutch oven or large high-sided skillet with a cover over medium heat and pour in two tablespoons of the oil. Warm the oil for approximately a minute, then add the onions and cook, stirring for approximately 10 minutes until softened.
4. While onion mixture is softening, cut the peppers and chiles in half, trim the tops, remove core and seeds. Cut bell peppers lengthwise into ½ inch strips, and thinly slice the chiles.
5. Add remaining tablespoon of oil to the pot, stir in the peppers and chiles, cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook and stir for another 20 minutes until all the vegetables are quite soft.
6. Add the tomatoes, garlic, salt, sugar, thyme, bay leaf, piment d'Esplette, and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir well, cover and cook for another 10 minutes. Remove cover and let the piperade simmer for another 15 minutes. There will be a decent amount of liquid in the pot. Add more salt, pepper or piment d'Esplette if needed.
7. For the Chicken:
8. Pat the chicken pieces dry. Warm oil in a Dutch Oven. Add a couple of chicken pieces skin side down, and cook until the skin is a golden brown for approximately 5 minutes. (Do not crowd the chicken - do it in batches) Turn the chicken over and cook for approximately 3 more minutes. Transfer the chicken to a bowl, season with salt and pepper, and continue until all the chicken is browned.
9. Discard the oil, set the pot over high heat, pour in the wine, and use a wooden spoon to scrape up any bits that might have stuck to the bottom. Let the wine cook until it is reduced to approximately 2 tablespoons. Return the chicken to the pot, and add any juices that have accumulated in the bowl.
10. Spoon in the piperade and bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat so that the piperade just simmers. Cover the pot and simmer gently for approximately 40 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Taste for salt and pepper, and season as needed.
11. To serve place white rice on a plate, place chicken on rice and top with piperade and garnish with fresh cilantro or basil.

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